A Situated Cognition Perspective on Learning on Demand

William J. Clancey

Institute for Research on Learning

2550 Hanover Street, Palo Alto CA 94304

Bill_Clancey@irl.com

What does it mean to say that learning is a process of knowledge construction,
that it is highly tuned to the situations in which it takes place? Two
interpretations, at least, are important: The neurophysiological view
is that perception and action arise together, so one's knowledge is always
a new way of coordinating ways of talking, seeing, and moving, within ongoing
interactions (Clancey, 1993). In this sense learning is tuned to situations
because our perception of what constitutes "a situation" is arising within
a newly organized, adapted response. The social view is that use
of tools occurs within social interactions, so the idea of a task is enlarged
to "participating as member of a community of practice" and not just fixing
the margins on a paper (Lave and Wenger 1991). Both perspectives complement
a strictly cognitive, information processing analysis of manipulating representations.
We ask "coordinating what interaction?" and "what social purposes motivate
the demand?" One effect of this shift is to view individual motivation
as inherently social and then to consider how tool design can foster organizational
learning (for sharing and accumulating methods).

People are continually faced with new computer systems that they must
learn outside of the classroom. A wide variety of sources are available
to support learning on demand today:

on-line help (indexed by topic)

examples of how a system can be used (e.g., word processor documents)

reusable artifacts (e.g., clip-art, stacks and buttons in Hypercard)

menu descriptions (e.g., "balloon help")

reference manuals

bulletin boards

We could proceed at this level, exploring how technology like "coaching
systems" can be applied. This is certainly worth doing. However, considering
the larger framework of social interaction is useful before launching into
tool design. Learning on demand might be approached by investigating what
social uses people are making of software today. Consider these
social activities:

A researcher uses a chart to explain to the lab director how project time
is allocated, to justify a salary increase.

A secretary uses a table format in a word processor to summarize an investigation
of video hardware, which a researcher had requested.

A consultant brings a simulation program on a laptop computer to a meeting
to show a client what kind of tool they might use in their design projects.

A researcher prints colored block diagrams to show another researcher how
a programming language was used in a previous project.

The point of these examples is that it is difficult to separate individual
curiosity or desire to learn from participation in a social setting. In
such examples we find people developing their social identity by influencing
rewards, promoting personal involvement in a project, demonstrating competence
and contribution, and enhancing a group's status.

This analysis suggests that we not focus our investigation of learning
on demand on an individual's interaction with a workstation. Instead we
can study tool characteristics that enhance or frustrate an individual's
actions within a group. We can investigate how tools influence what conversations
occur, and how artifacts are shared and adapted to develop a genre. As
a simple example, do people in a group use "stationery" or templates when
writing new letters or files, or start from scratch? Consider what happens
when someone creates an artifact (eg., a hypercard stack summarizing a
research project), which is not used or commented on by colleagues. In
a larger sense, "learning on demand" involves constructing goals and values
with colleagues. What tools might encourage such conversations to occur?

To proceed in this way, we should study what's happening in groups today—how
is individual learning of computer tools embedded in social actions? What
are the speech acts involved in creating representations, such as spreadsheets
and diagrams, and sharing them? By this view, promoting new uses for tools
goes beyond teaching how to use a tool's features for local tasks. Learning
on demand can help people formulate what they are attempting to accomplish
within a group, make transparent individual contributions, and establish
a culture of building on each other's work.